A curious Reddit post showing a burned-out AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D could have new AMD CPU owners concerned. Questions have been asked about whether the motherboard or CPU itself is faulty, but it looks like it could be down to a simple user error, rather than a more serious design problem.
A worst-case scenario for AMD would be a wider fault with its brand new chip, which is already the best gaming CPU you can buy. That would certainly put a spring in the steps of Intel, which itself has faced a terrible crisis with voltage fluctuations in its Raptor Lake CPUs, leading to game crashes and even damaged CPUs. However, the physical evidence of this burned 9800X3D doesn’t point to a flawed design that needs fixing in this case, as we’ll explain.
In the Reddit post in question in the r/pcmasterrace subreddit, the uniquely named user “TrumpPooPoosPants” shared some pictures of the burned 9800X3D and MSI Mag X870 Tomahawk motherboard into which it was installed. Further in the comments, the Redditor explained that the motherboard failed to POST with a “00” error code, although given the state of the CPU, an unnecessary one, with the CPU itself having obvious signs of fire damage.
While a CPU defect can’t exclusively be ruled out, a deeper look at some of the other photos shared by the user further down the thread shows a more likely cause. As several other Redditors have pointed out, there’s substantial damage to the plastic around the socket, as you can see in the above image, which makes it look as though the CPU has been forced into the socket slightly crookedly, or even upside down.
This would have broken the socket when the pressure from the lever was put in place, again causing a misalignment with the pins on the motherboard and the pads on the CPU. This also corresponds with the picture below, where you can see that the CPU socket cover has a large bulge in it, presumably after having been forced into place over a CPU that wasn’t properly sitting in the socket.
One convincing plausible explanation from another Redditor in the thread is that, after trying to lock the CPU into the socket for the first time and failing, the CPU became misaligned. Trying to lock it again, with the CPU not correctly in place, would cause damage to the pins and the socket level mechanism. Once the PC was turned on, the CPU wasn’t lined up correctly with the socket pins, and then it was game over.
It’s not all bad news for Mr. Pants, however. Stephen Burke, the PC hardware YouTuber behind the Gamers Nexus channel, has already jumped in, offering to buy the burned-out 9800X3D for his own analysis, with the Redditor already accepting. This will avoid a lengthy RMA process, but will also give Gamers Nexus the chance to look into the cause behind this incident, if one can be identified.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on whether this really was just a fault caused by one-off bad components, a bad installation, or whether there’s a deeper cause behind it. For now, check out our AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D review for our thoughts on the new AMD flagship, which has stomped all over the Intel Arrow Lake lineup with its superior gaming performance.